Happy (late) Easter...

So I'm going through all of my pictures and just now realized that I haven't posted anything from Easter. I feel so behind, ugh... oh, well, better late than never right?!

On Good Friday the girls and I made resurrection buns (biscuits, rolls... whatever you want to call them). It was really simple actually, just your basic Pillsbury biscuits rolled out into 5 inch circles, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, stuffed with a marshmallow and topped with more cinnamon and sugar. As you can see Abby was a little heavy handed with the sugar mix!

Covering up the marshmallows with the dough.

Here they are... all the marshmallows sealed in their little tombs.

We baked them according to the directions on the package.

And when you open them... they're empty! It was a great way to share the story of Easter with the girls while they had something hands on to do.

On Easter morning we had a little egg hunt outside in the common yard and then went inside to watch the church's live broadcast of that morning's service... since I was sick that weekend, fun I know right?! Good thing we didn't have plans to go anywhere... it was a pretty low key afternoon just playing games and hanging with the family. We did have a big lunch, but nothing crazy  though, it was just us after all! : )

Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!

More photos from Christmas...

While we were up in Seattle my parents and grandma drove over the pass and we actually got to see them again... yay! We met up with them over at my cousin Tyler's house. I can't believe we were all there. It's seriously been forever, over ten years forever since we've all been in the same place at once... so crazy and so wrong.

Seattle Snow...

It actually snowed while we were up in Seattle, well if you count the 15 minutes it snow flurried, the girls loved it regardless of its brief stay! As you can see...

Lizzie wanted hot chocolate, but of course she only took one sip, good thing Abbers was around to finish it off for her.

Christmas Day...

Yay, today is one of the first days were I actually feel like myself again. I mainly think it's because I'm off the pain killers... those things do really screwy things to my head and tummy. I really don't like it at all, plus coffee tastes so messed up on Vicodin (Ben says his migraine medicine does the same thing, go figure). So most of today has been spent playing catch-up on all of the things that have been neglected over the last couple weeks like laundry and everything online. So here are finally our pictures from Christmas morning up in Seattle, enjoy!

Abby's newest sidekick... Jessie!

If you look closely there is a huge littlest pet shop box under there... Christmas wouldn't be complete without one!

Princess Abby... she's suddenly obsessed about dress-up stuff.

This is what I got... I love it all.

And of course Ben got another nerf gun... would he really want anything else... nah!

Christmas Eve...

 So now that I'm back home and out of the hospital I can start catching up on this space, well as long as my belly button doesn't start throbbing anyways... but more on that later. Here our some pictures from our trip up to Seattle for Christmas, these were from Christmas Eve while we were all opening our stockings and ejoying each other's company.

Abbers with her most favorite person ever... Heidi!

Even Grandma Jean had some fun stuff in her stocking this year.

So the boys didn't mean to wear the same shirt, well at least I don't think so and apparently they didn't want their bellies to show in the picture, but instead we get this lovely expression!

Mabel doggie opening her stocking... she wasn't much into it, definitely nothing like Frtiz was, maybe she might be excited if we put some hot dogs in there!

Cookie Time...

Guess what we did today?! Haha... like you really have to guess, but yup, we made sugar cookies. First off... thank you Trader Joe's for making the absolutely easiest sugar cookie experience EVER!!! We all know I how I feel about baking and how evil it is and this was painless and fool proof and they make pretty darn good cookies... just make sure you add some vanilla into the mix.

 Abby got a little crazy and ambitious with the cutting... she thought it was playdough at first too, silly girl!

Lizzie admiring her absolutely perfect cuts... and yes they had to be PERFECT otherwise I'd have to re-roll her dough so she could start all over, wonder who she gets that from?!

 About half way through Abby was more than done and started playing with the flour instead of cutting cookies and Lizzie thought the flour tasted delicious... I have very strange children.

The most favorite part... decorating, or just eating the colored sugar, you decide.

Speaking of eating, what fun is making cookies if you don't get to enjoy them! Nothing beats the smell of baking cookies and coffee brewing in the middle of a dark, late afternoon. Mmm cookies!

Happy Thanksgiving...

Hope everyone is having a great day with family, friends, games, and lots of food! We ended up having Thanksgiving with just the four of us... it was actually really, really nice trying out some stuff I had never made before without feeling the need to freak out if it all blew up... it was just us after all. Plus a lot of it was made over the course of a couple days, nobody likes to spend all day in the kitchen all by yourself while everyone else in the house is playing. All in all it was a success (baked sweet potato casserole from scratch is amazingly awesome, even if it is just Abby and I eating it and fancy stuffing is so not worth it... always and forever stove-top) and our house is now fully equipped with enough left overs for the next couple of days... yes! I think I'm going to go join Abby for a little nap soon, then play some video games and enjoy multiple cups of coffee... I so love long weekends with absolutely nothing planned! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We'll see some of you soon.

I am thankful for...

Awww, who knew?! The constant up down of Abby makes me laugh!

A Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast...

Lizzie had a little party at school this last Friday in honor of Thanksgiving. It's always fun to be in her classroom and have her excitedly show me what she's been working on and learning. For the feast everyone brought in a cup of sliced fruit so all kids could make a giant fruit salad with muffins and various breads on the side. After hanging out and playing for a little while everyone took turns and shared what they were thankful for. Some were pretty silly and funny (on purpose of course) and others were very sweet... everything from the air, to the whole earth, mom and dad, pets, stuffed animals, God, and of course the food.

 Lizzie with her turkey place mat she made

 Can you find Abby?! Yup, front and center in the highly coveted comfy chair!

Lizzie's whole class... minus one. Her friend Elizabeth had to leave early that day.

Makes a mama proud!

Halloween Night...

Our Halloween was a pretty busy day... tons of fun though. We started the day by going to church, then playing at home for a little bit (Abby and I even somehow got a little nap in), then we all got ready for the evening. Ben wanted to do a little photo shoot in his John Marston costume... of course, so off we headed to Mentryville (which only happens to be15 minutes from our house). I wish we would have gone way earlier, but Ben's not very good with his time or quickly putting on a Halloween costume for that matter... so we got there almost at dusk and my poor little camera was has having serious white balance issues. We stayed until they kicked us out, which was fine since it was so dark by then. You can checkout his pictures over here on his flickr page. Such a cool costume... it was a good thing the girls really wanted to buy theirs this year, otherwise I probably wouldn't have had enough time to give to Ben's. Anyways, so after getting kicked out of the park we went to McDonald's for dinner (yum... I know) and then took the girls around the neighborhood over by Lizzie's school. They got tons of candy, saw some kids from school, and were done after 3 little streets. Ben wanted to keep going... I think it was because people actually recognized who he was (unlike the night before) and was really liking all that attention, but the girls made it load and clear that they were more than done! Hope everyone had a great night, too!

 The one and only pictures with the Minnie ears on... I think we made it to at least 2 houses with them on!